Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been elected to Apple Inc.'s Board of Directors

Tuesday Apple announced that Google CEO Dr. Eric Schmidt has
been elected to the company’s board of directors bringing the board's total
membership to eight. Dr. Schmidt currently also sits on the board of directors for
Google and Princeton University’s board of trustees.

“Eric is obviously doing a terrific job as CEO of Google,
and we look forward to his contributions as a member of Apple’s board of
directors,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Dr. Schmidt has a long history working
with leading companies in the technology sector. Prior to his chief position at
Google Dr. Schmidt was chairman and CEO of Novell and before that he was the
CTO at Sun Microsystems.

Dr. Schmidt has also held positions with Xerox in the
company’s Palo Alto research center (PARC) as well as Bell Labs and Zilog. Dr.
Schmidt holds a bachelors degree from Princeton University in electrical
engineering and a master’s and Ph.D. in computer science from Berkeley.

The ties between Apple and Google have been relatively quiet, at least until now. More than likely we will see some collaboration between the two companies in the near future. iGmail anyone?

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Oh, you know, iTunes and the terrible mp4 format, or whatever it is, along with the awful DRM scheme.

And the OS, which they charge you prime rates for every single little feature they add each year. 10.1, 10.2, 10.3...what is it, 10.6 now? Way to strangle every bit of money out of your user base.

And not just the software. The hardware is legendary for its underperformance vs. price ratio. Their LCDs are good, but cost so much more than Dell's it's not even funny. And the last time I built a PowerMac on their site, it cost I think $2,500, and a good video card OR a monitor wasn't even included. I won't complain about their MacBooks, they actually have merit, and if I didn't have to shell out hundreds of dollars for each new flavor of OSX, I might actually have gotten one.

Meanwhile, Google develops one of the best webmail services, for free, and gives you almost 3 GB of space, for free, and also develops a program (inspired by a FireFox plugin) to let you use that as online storage, for free, and lets you use as many accounts as you want, for free, so in effect they are giving away hundreds of gigabytes of online storage for absolutely zero dollars. Contrast that with Apple charging for each release of its OS, and you'll see what I mean about diametrically opposing business models.

Funny. If the mp4 format is so terrible, then the only good format must be ogg. Certainly you don't use mp3, right?

As for charging for the OS... what is the alternative? Giving it away for free? Someone has to pay the engineers somehow. If you don't like 10.2, 10.3, or 10.4, why not just SKIP those updates? I know people who are still using Win2k, having skipped XP, and are evaluating Vista. Apple is at 10.4 right now, btw.

As per hardware... have you looked at a dual dual core Dell lately? From all angles it looks to be $500 to $1000 more expensive than a dual dual core Mac. And each version of OS X is $129, and you are more than free to skip the versions you didn't need. If it wasn't worth it, why bother buying it?

They actually don't have diametrically opposing business models, Google and Apple, unless you have a broken definition of diametrically opposing. Google's business model is selling advertising. The only way Apple would have a diametrically opposed business model is if they were in the ad-busting flash blocking business... which they aren't.

Google collects information (via email use patterns, search patterns, and content value) from free services and then sells access to that collected information, such as targetted advertising. Apple sells services, such as the iTMS and .mac, products, such as the iPod and Mac Pro, and software, such as Final Cut Express and iLife.

There is potential for great synergy actually; if Google can tap into Apple's famed designers to improve the usability and ease of use of Google's free services, it means Google will increase their userbase and therefore increase the amount of information they collect. In return Google can power Apple's services, such as .Mac, or extensively index and link them, such as the iTMS, increasing the power of such services while reducing the cost by subsidizing them for Apple.

Then there is software, because both Google and Apple produce software. Google again does it to increase usage of their services, Picasa to Picasaweb. Apple does it to tempt users with easy, powerful, beautiful products, while gaining income from associated services, such as iPhoto to .mac

If Google subsidized iPhoto and Apple released a Windows compatible Google branded version then both benefit as outlined above; Google by increasing their userbase, Apple from Google money and cobranding with another popular brand.

Ignoring the rest of your post, as much of it is very much valid... (I can see dual-duals at the moment is very competitive going Apple!)

"As per charging for the OS" as you say...
Everything you say is valid. And as a software eng. I totally agree "teh moneys" as they say have to come from somewhere... however the VAST majority are Windows users, and they are used to paying moderate amounts for a HUGE change every 6-7 years, not small-low amounts for a small-moderate change every 1-2, so to them it looks like it is a "rip-off". Personally, I am very much on Apple's side with this, but it's just economic fact, as a user or supporter in the minority you must learn to accept this.

As for Google and Apple's "collaboration", I'm sure you've already realised that this news in no way means such a thing exists... Yet further from that, assuming it is to give your arguments a base, you are assuming in a huge way that Apple's "famed designers" are able to actually "improve the usability and ease of use" of their "free services".

Now not to attack it piece-by-piece, as it would be too damn lengthy, but since when has anything "Apple" been any more user-friendly than anything "Google"?

Did you see what Mac search was like before google.com/mac?
Have you compared old .Mac e-mail to Gmail?
... and the examples could go on...

For a MAC USER, perhaps, yes, Apple programs are more user friendly. But for the vast, vast, majority who have minimal to no knowledge of computers and have Windows in what they do, I think you will find Google offer far more user friendly interfaces.

Apple's "famed designers", as you put it yourself, are famed for exactly that: DESIGN.

But please do not mistake good product design for good interface design. Yes, the iPod is an excellent example of both, but using one example to assume a direct correlation would be beyond stupid.

You're comparing things Google is good at (Search, email) with things that Apple is bad at.

However how about the reverse? Photo pages on Picasaweb vs photo pages on .Mac? The iTMS vs Google Video?

Or how about applications, such as iMovie, iPhoto, or Final Cut? Apple isn't without some skill here, you know. They do have things to offer that Google might be able to take advantage of, and Google as well has things to offer that Apple would be able to take advantage of.

Much as you blanket-assumed Apple's "Designers" would save Google's world.

I freely admit Picasa web is somewhat awkward, but really, the difference there can be measured in % rather than ^ and as such is surely not negligible.

And I understand Apple is not useless, personally I use iMovie over any Windows equivalent, I have a Mac at work mostly just for this and the proper shell for doing whois lookups. Yet when did Google even offer a competitor for these products?

If you were talking about MS, yes, iMovie offers an advantage over Windows Movie Maker, yes, iPhoto offers advantages over Windows Picture Viewer.

But please do not assume Windows/Wintel/PC/NON-Mac are one and the same as Google.

Google is not even offering anything in most of these platforms, or is not interested in doing so, or is still in Beta or even Alpha. Just because they COULD offer software in that region through a partnership does not mean they SHOULD, especially if it isn't even near their current market audiences.

quote: Oh, you know, iTunes and the terrible mp4 format, or whatever it is, along with the awful DRM scheme.

AAC is as proprietary as mp3. As a matter of fact, it was developed by the same people who made mp3.

quote: And the OS, which they charge you prime rates for every single little feature they add each year. 10.1, 10.2, 10.3...what is it, 10.6 now? Way to strangle every bit of money out of your user base.

Kinda like those nasty car companies that come out with a new model each year? Just as I don't buy a new car every year, I don't upgrade my OS whenever a new one is available.

quote: And the last time I built a PowerMac on their site, it cost I think $2,500, and a good video card OR a monitor wasn't even included

A comparativly configured PC would cost about the same.

quote: Meanwhile, Google develops one of the best webmail services, for free, and gives you almost 3 GB of space, for free

Gmail is not free. See those ads in your email? I bet you don't even know what Google's actual product is. It's not search, email, maps or anything that you actually use. Googles product is your eyes. They sell advertising. The things that you use are the vehicles they use to deliver that advertising.

Note that I never said mp3 was better than mp4. In fact I steer clear of both of them, as they are noticably different in quality than formats like OGG and FLAC, which offer 192-kbit-like quality.

No MP3 player other than an iPod can play purchased iTunes music files, without a massive, and possibly illegal, headache for removing the DRM schemes. This is the definition of the term proprietary, and is indefensible. And as things like FLAC and OGG are better than .mp4 and freely available, Apple is hardly the vanguard of 'quality' in the music department. Although I doubt Apple could slap on its almost-monopolistic DRM scheme on those formats, as they are open-source.

And I wasn't talking about car companies. I was talking about Operating Systems. Your comment is meaningless.

And I just configured the least expensive "Ultra" Dell (XPS), and the least expensive Mac Pro. The Mac was $700 more expensive. Trust me, they will always be more expensive than even the most overpriced PCs (and Dell XPS are one of the most overpriced PCs out there). So I'm guessing that the difference in price accounts for the software Apple includes: iLife 06, something called Comic Life, and OmniOutliner, and demos for some other stuff. So yeah, I can pretty safely say Apple overcharges for its 'innovation'.

And for all intents and purposes, GMail IS free. No money out of my pocket = free. That's the definition, buddy. No way around it. I know Google's main income stream is advertising. You know how much that costs me? Nothing. Game, set, match.

Funny, but I hear a difference in my classical pieces. I'm sorry you can't, but I guess that's why you're you and I'm me. And just a quick look on peer-reviewed Wikipedia shows that 192kps (for an mp3 file) is the actual 'transparency' level for audio files, with 128kps being 'good enough'.

And 192kps-like quality means it's comparable to a mp3 file of 192kps quality, but not exactly because that's not how they're measured.

As Google is not a hardware company, (except those boxes that look like a cheese) I'll ignore that part if it's okay.

So, what about Shake, Final Cut, Motion, Aperture, the iLife suite, the iWork suite, Logic, Soundtrack etc. Are those overpriced too? I think not, if you compare to the alternatives. I'm not sure if Google have anything comparable , but I'll guess not.

I'm sorry if it came off as trolling, but the point was mostly to prove that Apple software products are not overpriced, and I was not comparing the prices against Google. You are completely free to compare to anyone. Don't let my post obstruct you.

The OP was suggesting that Apple's and Google's business models were diametrically opposed. I chose to ignore the fact that giving away software isn't really what Google is about for the sake of the argument. Google offers free, pretty basic software. Apple offer pretty cheap prosumer/professional software. Different, yes, diametrically opposed, i believe not.